What is the "transfiguration"?

The gospels of Mark (Mk. 9:2-8), Matthew (Mt. 17:1-8) and Luke (Lk. 9:28-36) tell this story. Jesus takes Peter, John and James with him and goes up a mountain to pray. As he is praying, the appearance of his face is changed. Then a cloud comes over them, and a voice from the cloud is heard saying: "This is my Son, the Chosen One; listen to him." All three gospels report the fear of the disciples when they hear a voice. But only the gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus touched and comforted the disciples. In all three accounts Elijah and Moses appear and the clothes of Jesus become intensely white, but the gospel of Matthew alone reports a light from the cloud.

The imagery of this story reminds the reader of Moses going up the mountain to receive the commandments of the law from God. Moses went alone, but came down from the mountain with a radiant face. (Exodus 34:29) Here, Jesus has three witnesses with him, and Moses and Elijah appear to them all. Moses represents the law of the covenant and Elijah the prophets, so this story presents Jesus as the fulfillment of both.

The cloud and the voice are also manifestations of God related to Moses and the covenant with ancient Israel, for the Israelites were led through the wilderness by a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire during the night. Moreover, the Exodus account reports that God spoke to Moses in order to give him the law.

Now, however, God names a Son to represent him on earth.

This story in the first three gospels of the New Testament presents Jesus as the new law and the fulfillment of the prophets. Listen to him, the church preaches, and you will hear the word of God. The law and the prophets are now to be interpreted through him, through Paul's writings that are inspired by the call of Christ Jesus, and through the gospels that present the churches' understanding of the word of God revealed through Jesus the Christ.

The gospel does not require keeping the law of Moses, because Jesus is the new law of love. And the gospel is not prophecy, because Jesus is the fulfillment of all the prophecies of ancient Israel. The good news is that Christ is a new beginning in the story of faith in God that offers salvation to all who repent and put their trust in the power of love. 

Where in the New Testament is the story of the shepherds in the field?

The story of the shepherds gathering around the manger, where the new born baby is lying, is found only in the gospel of Luke. (Lk. 2:16-21) The three kings from the East do not appear in this gospel account. The birth of Jesus is made known only to shepherds who are tending their flocks in the fields. Mary, who praised God for the gift of her son, now ponders what his life will mean for her and the world. In keeping with Jewish law the child is circumcised eight days after his birth and then he is named. The gospel records the name as Jesus, but this is the Greek translation of the Hebrew name Joshua, which is how Jesus must have been known in his family and among his own people.

Where does the Golden Rule come from?

In the gospel of Luke, Jesus says: "Do to others as you would like them to do to you." Lk. 6:31) In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus adds, "for this is the law and the prophets." (Mt. 7:12) Both Jews and Christians in the first century referred to "the law and the prophets" as "scripture." The letters of Paul and the gospels written after them did not become "scripture" until the 4th century when they were included in the canon of the Christian Bible. The gospel of Matthew emphasizes that the teachings of Jesus sum up the Jewish scriptures, because this gospel was written for a primarily Jewish Christian church. The gospel of Luke does not identify the Golden Rule with the Jewish scriptures, because it was written for a largely Gentile church.

In 40-10 BCE Hillel was the leader of the dominant school of Pharisees in Palestine. A story is told that once a Gentile came and said to Hillel, "I will convert, if you can teach me Judaism while standing on one foot." Hillel replied, rephrasing Leviticus 19:18, "What is hateful to you do not do to anyone else." When this same man went to Shammai, the leader of a school of Pharisees that interpreted the Jewish law more strictly, the man was physically pushed away. The conflict among Pharisees, between the followers of Hillel and the followers of Shannai, is reflected in the gospels of the New Testament. The teachings of Jesus are often consistent with what was taught by the Pharisees who followed the teachings of Hillel about the law and the prophets, and thus would have been opposed by the Pharisees who followed the teachings of Shammai.

Was Mary a virgin when Jesus was born?

In the gospel of Matthew Joseph, who is betrothed to Mary but has not yet married her, is told by an angel in a dream to accept Mary and her son, who has been conceived by the Holy Spirit. (Mt. 1:18-25) The gospel quotes a prophecy from Isaiah 7:14 that "a virgin shall conceive and bear a son" whose name is to be Emmanuel (God with us). The gospel is quoting from the Greek translation of Isaiah (in the Septuagint), because it uses the Greek word for virgin (which is used in the Greek text) rather than the word for young woman (which is the original Hebrew text). This difference shows up in Protestant Bibles, such as the Revised Standard Version, because Protestant Bibles translate the Old Testament from the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah 7:14 in the Hebrew Bible refers to a "young woman" giving birth, and so in Protestant Bibles Isaiah 7:14 refers to a "young woman" even though Matthew 1:23 quoting from Isaiah 7:14 refers to "a virgin."

The idea that Mary was a virgin is a belief of the early church. A miraculous birth was an important part of the story of a savior for the Greeks, and the gospel of Matthew was written in Greek for Gentile and Jewish Christians who were very much at home in Greek culture but also looking for the fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy. Faith does not require this belief. Faith only requires trusting in the God who is revealed in the Christian Bible.

Why isn't the name "Jesus" in the Old Testament?

Jesus is the Greek (and Latin) name for the Hebrew name, Joshua, which means "savior" or "he will save." Among the Jews of Galilee and Jerusalem, Jesus in his own time would have been known by his Jewish name, Joshua. This name is found in the Old Testament. Joshua led the tribes of Israel out of the wilderness and into the promised land. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus is the new Joshua who will lead the people into the kingdom of God (heaven, in the gospel of Matthew).

Who said all the commandments can be summed up by loving your neighbor?

Paul. In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul says that the commandments of the law of Moses are fulfilled by loving your neighbor. (Rom. 13:8-10) We read this today as a reference to the teaching of the great commandment in the first three gospels of the New Testament. (Mk. 12:28-34, Mt. 22:34-40, Lk. 25-28) But Paul does not refer to any of these gospels as his authority for this statement about the law of Moses. Furthermore, because he never mentions any of these gospels, it is likely that none of them were written at the time Paul was writing to the church in Rome. Paul also does not tell the Christians in Rome that he is quoting from the teachings of Jesus, which is what the gospels that are written later will do.

If Paul knew that Jesus had summed up the law of Moses with the "great commandment" to love one's neighbors, it seems he would have attributed this statement to Jesus. That would surely have given Paul's statement clout. Instead, Paul presents the teaching on his own authority. Either Paul has not heard this teaching from the apostles, who were the disciples of Jesus, or he heard it but nevertheless presents the teaching as his own understanding of the law of Moses.

We read in Paul's letter to the Galatians, and also in Acts, of Christians in the Jerusalem church who believed that the dietary restrictions of the law of Moses had to be enforced within the church. Thus, we know that the church in Jerusalem led by the former disciples of Jesus did not embrace the "great commandment." This suggests that Jesus did not say what is attributed to him, or at least that he did not teach the "great commandment" to love our neighbors as a replacement for the law of Moses, as Paul taught.

More likely, the gospel of Mark put the teaching of Paul on the lips of Jesus as part of his "good news" for the Gentile church in order to support Paul's argument that the commandments of the law of Moses were not required of Christians except for the moral commandment to love one's neighbors. The gospel of Matthew included the story and teaching of the gospel of Mark, but also clearly affirmed that the other commandments of the law of Moses were not set aside by the "great commandment" — at least not for the Jewish Christians of his church. (Mt. 5:17-20) The author of the two-part narrative, the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, differs from both the gospels of Mark and Matthew by describing a compromise in the early church that required Gentile converts to keep some of the dietary commandments of the law of Moses. But Acts does not succeed in hiding the split between Paul and Barnabas that occurs over this compromise, which Paul does not accept. (See Acts 15 and Gal. 2)

About twenty years before Jesus was born, Hillel summed up the law of Moses with the words, "What is hateful to you do not do to others." The rest of the law, he said, is commentary. Hillel was the founder of one of the major schools of the Pharisees. More than seventy years later Paul called himself, "as to the law," a Pharisee. (Philippians 3:5) Because the gospels portray the Pharisees as the enemies of Jesus, it is hard to imagine that Paul thought of himself as a Pharisee. But in the first century CE there were schools of Pharisees with different teachings. As the synagogue-oriented Jewish tradition that we know today as Judaism developed in conflict with the growing church after the temple was destroyed in 70 CE, Pharisees who promoted a more legalistic interpretation of the torah became more powerful. It is these Pharisees that are portrayed in the gospel stories as the enemies of Jesus. The teaching of Hillel's school of Pharisees, that Paul draws on to argue against imposing the law of Moses on Gentile converts in the church, is presented in the first three gospels of the New Testament as the teaching of Jesus.

Where in the Bible is the story of the angel's visit to Mary?

It is in the gospel of Luke. (Lk. 1:26-38) This wonderful story of Mary does not appear in any other gospel. The gospels of Mark and John do not contain birth stories, and the gospel of Matthew tells of an angel appearing to Joseph to explain the birth of Jesus to his betrothed. The two-part account, which the New Testament calls the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, identifies a number of women who follow Jesus during his ministry and also women who are leaders of the churches that Paul helps to organize. The Christian community that the author was addressing must have included women in leadership positions, and surely the beginning of the gospel of Luke has been successful in calling women to service in the life of the church.

All life in the womb is miraculous, of course, and we ought not to take it for granted. The God who is said to create this special child is also the source of our own lives, and we are also special. The story of an extraordinary gift, in the birth of Jesus, is also a story implying that every birth is an extraordinary gift. All life that comes from the womb is a gift from God. To understand birth as simply the result of a sex act between a man and a woman is to misunderstand. We are the gift of God to the world, as Jesus was the gift of God to Mary.

Who is Jeremiah?

Jeremiah was a descendant of the priest Abiathar, who Solomon had banished from the temple. The prophecies of Jeremiah began in 627 BCE and ended sometime after 580 BCE. It is thought that Jeremiah was among the exiles of Jerusalem that were taken into Egypt after the Babylonians conquered the city in 587 BCE. The 20th chapter of his prophecy was dictated by Jeremiah to Baruch, his scribe, during the reign of Josiah, after Jeremiah had been beaten and imprisoned for prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem because of the idolatry of the Israelites. The Hebrew text of Jeremiah, from which the English version in the Protestant Bible is taken, differs from the Greek text (Septuagint) both in content and order. Even more surprising, different editions of Jeremiah were discovered among the scrolls at Qumran. This suggests that at least some of the scrolls of the Old Testament were read in alternative forms as late as the time of Jesus.

Did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on the colt of an ass?

In the gospels of Mark, Luke and John, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a colt of an ass, but in the gospel of Matthew he is seated on an ass and its colt. (Mt. 21:1-11) All four gospels take the image from Zechariah 9:9, but the gospel of Matthew wants to show that Jesus literally is the fulfillment of prophecy. And Zechariah 9:9 describes a king riding into Jerusalem "on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass." The second part of the phrase is not actually identifying a second animal, for this does not make any sense; it is merely a poetic repetition. But the gospel of Matthew takes the text literally, perhaps because the author is much more literate in Greek than in Hebrew. These differences in understanding reveal that the other gospel authors felt free to interpret scripture in the way that made sense to them and that the author of Matthew, in taking scripture literally, is also "interpreting" it.

All the gospels see the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem as the beginning of a passion drama revealing that Jesus is the true king of the Jews, and so they bring him into the city as a king would enter. It is impossible to say whether or not Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on the colt of an ass, and Paul says nothing about the life of Jesus that would confirm this story. But clearly the account of Jesus entering Jerusalem is an essential part of the passion story that is told in the life of the church even before the gospels are written.

What does Jesus pray in the Garden of Gethsemane?

The story of the disciples falling asleep in the garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus prays before he is arrested, is very familiar. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus prays: "My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Yet not as I will, but as you will." (Mt. 26:36-46) The account in the gospel of Matthew follows closely the gospel of Mark, but changes "Abba, Father" to "My Father." Perhaps the author of the gospel of Matthew felt the Aramaic word "Abba," which we might today translate as "Daddy" or "Papa," was too familiar to be acceptable to his readers. In the account in the gospel of Luke, Jesus leaves his disciples only once to pray, not three times. Moreover, the gospel of Luke adds to the story that an angel appears to him, and that his sweat "became like great drops of blood." (Lk. 22:44) The gospel of John does not report this scene at all, but instead has Jesus instructing his disciples and praying confidently to God prior to his arrest.

Seeing these differences in the passion story reminds us that the authors are making choices, as they write, in the way that they present the story to their intended readers. They were not writing for us, they were writing for their Christian communities. And these Christian communities were different. Nonetheless, we can draw meaning from the stories. All the gospels present Jesus as submitting to the will of God. We are call to have faith, which means trusting in God. "Abba, Father," we might also pray, "may your will be done."

Why does Jesus cry out on the cross, "My God, why have you forsaken me?"

The gospels of Mark (Mk. 15:34) and Matthew (Mt. 46) report that on the cross Jesus cried out in Aramaic the first words of Psalm 22. (The gospel of Matthew, however, renders "My God, my God" in Hebrew rather than Aramaic, perhaps so it sounds more like Elijah's name, which is what some in the crowd are said to think.) In the gospel of Luke the dying Jesus says, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!" (Lk. 23:46) But in the gospel of John the last words of Jesus are, "It is finished." Clearly, these are not different memories of the same event but different conclusions to these four versions of the passion story.

The words in the gospels of Mark and Matthew may seem despairing, until one reads the entire psalm from which they are taken, for it ends with an affirmation of faith. The last words of Jesus in these first two gospels may be understood as a continuation on the cross of the prayer of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. The gospel of Luke edits these words out of the story's ending and adds a conversation between Jesus and one of the men condemned with him. The focus at the end, therefore, is on the spirit of Jesus, a theme through the gospel of Luke. The Jesus of the gospel of John triumphantly submits to arrest and on the cross simply completes his work on earth, seemingly without any of the agony that afflicts the Jesus of the gospels of Mark and Matthew.

What is Simeon's prophecy?

In the gospel of Luke an old man named Simeon sees the baby Jesus in the temple with his parents and says: "My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples - a light to enlighten the nations." (Lk. 2:22-32) Jesus is to be a light not only for the Hebrew people, but also for all the nations of the world. The author of the gospel of Luke is writing this story for a church already dominated by Gentiles, and this church is growing within the Roman Empire beyond its Jewish roots in Palestine. It is not surprising, therefore, that the gospel offers salvation to all people with faith. Simeon's prophecy links the beginnings of Jesus in Palestine with the growth of the church in the Roman Empire in the cities of Ephesus, Collossae, Corinth, Galatia, and Rome. The story points away from the past to the future.